


#EXT.000709.ELSINORE

by mikawritesthings, Nausicaa_E



Series: The A. E. Doyle Library [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Allegories for being trans, But only mostly, Canadian National Parks, Gen, Human Transformation, Original Character-centric, Vague Ending, avian - Freeform, based on a real experience, corvid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:53:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23586430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikawritesthings/pseuds/mikawritesthings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nausicaa_E/pseuds/Nausicaa_E
Summary: Narrative of Ripley Elsinore, regarding a road trip with their mother. Taken from a handwritten letter sent on January 7th of 2020 to Emily Halcyon Navarro, Assistant Librarian at the Albert E Doyle Memorial Library, Portland, Oregon.
Series: The A. E. Doyle Library [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722571
Kudos: 4





	#EXT.000709.ELSINORE

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [File #TRQ.000300.JEZEK 013](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22799104) by [Ellicit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellicit/pseuds/Ellicit). 



_ Narrative of Ripley Elsinore, regarding a road trip with their mother. Taken from a handwritten letter sent on January 7th of 2020 to Emily Halcyon Navarro, Assistant Librarian at the Albert E Doyle Memorial Library, Portland, Oregon. _

_ Narration begins. _

Some years ago, my mother and I went on a road trip across Canada, from the Easternmost point of Ontario to British Columbia on the West Coast. It occupied nearly my entire summer. That was the same summer before I began my freshman year of college, so both of us knew we had to make it special.

At a certain point (I really couldn’t tell you when), we wound up in Alberta. At least, I  _ think  _ it was Alberta. If there’s one thing this experience taught me, it’s that the human memory is fallible. For two nights, we stayed at a campsite in a fenced-in national park that had huge herds of bison, wolves, and other spooky wildlife roaming within its boundaries. But my favorite part were the crows.

Of course, crows are nothing special. They can be found across huge swathes of North America, and I’ve always said that if it weren’t for their pretty black plumage, they’d be considered as pesky as pigeons are. But I like them. Corvids are very intelligent, and very resourceful. They’ve been known to solve simple puzzles, give people small trinkets as currency in exchange for food, even recognize faces. Hell, they could probably develop their own civilization. I find that cleverness admirable.

The crows there were very interesting to watch. They were bold around people, sometimes even flying right up to them. Many people would write this off as a behavior that comes from expecting food; tourists at this sort of place  _ love  _ to try and sneak treats to wildlife. But these crows seemed to have something different in mind. They’d only interact with a few select people, and anyone who tried to feed or touch them would find that seemingly friendly crow immediately flying off in a huff. For the first day or so, I was pretty occupied with just...watching these crows. But curiously, not a single one ever came up to me.

The second day, my mom had the idea that we drive around the boundaries of the place. I agreed; we had the time for it on our itinerary, and I was curious to see what was just outside the fence. As it turns out, the answer to that is “nothing much.” For kilometers (we were in Canada, so it was simpler for us Americans to just abandon the imperial system altogether), there was nothing but poorly-paved roads and dilapidated farmland.

It wasn’t until we wound up  _ behind  _ the park that I learned exactly how dilapidated that got.

We stopped at the opposite end of the park from its entrance, just outside the enclosure. The park had a back exit as well as a front entrance; that exit couldn’t be entered from the other side. I’m pretty sure this was necessary for security measures. The last thing they’d need would be for some wackos to sneak in & try to do a bison heist. Not that there  _ were  _ many wackos out here. Behind the park was a dirt road, with the kind of deep ruts that only come from decades of use with no maintenance. My mother got out of the car to take pictures, but I found myself peering out the driver’s-side window.

Parallel to the road, on the opposite side, was a rotting wooden fence. The deep black color of the wood and collapsing remains of the fence posts were a clear sign that no one had been here to so much as  _ think  _ about fixing it in a long time. Behind that was a field of grass. Not the green pasture typically laid out for cattle, but wild grasses, dry and orange in the setting sun, that had been allowed to grow long and coarse. I hopped out of the car to get a better look at the remains of this...farm? I guessed that it had to be a farm.

My suspicions were confirmed when I saw an old tractor in that field, rusting in place. Off in the distance, there was a single barn. It was a husk of its old self; I honestly half expected it to collapse inward right there and then. Whatever paint it may have once had was fully gone, and only a grey shell of decayed planks remained.

And there was a murder of crows. They were perching on the fence some distance away. I try not to anthropomorphize animals too much, but it almost looked like they were  _ waiting  _ for something. 

Then one of them turned its head towards me.

It wasn’t quick and snappy, like the way birds normally move. It was slower than that. More like the way a human neck would turn.

The bird looked at me. With that same slow turn of the neck, its compatriots turned to face me, too. I realized that it had been a while since my mother came back from whatever she was doing, but I found myself too intrigued to leave.

Then, just like the crows in the park, a single member of the murder flew up to me. It shuffled its feet in place, cocking its head like it was expecting something. That’s when it hit me: I knew  _ exactly  _ what those crows in the park wanted. It wasn’t food or pats on the head. It was something that every human has, but very few humans are willing to part with.

I gave it to that crow. 

In the next blink of an eye, the crow was gone. In her place stood a tall young woman, her glossy black hair stark against her pale skin.

In my place stood me.

The crow had what she wanted. And me? I had what I  _ needed. _

I’m not here to preach the good word of the corvids to you. Nor am I here to give you any sort of threat. I’m here to give you a reminder: We exist. We exist across large swathes of  _ the world _ , but few humans even see us often enough to consider us pesky. We are intelligent, and resourceful.

Build our own civilization?

We already  _ have. _

_ Narrative ends. Readers with an appreciation for human irrelevance in the face of the natural world will note the similarities to the Venatio section, but the scale of this narrative leads me to place it in the Exitium section. The primary impetus for further reading comes from the narrator's personal engagement, a rarity in Exitium narratives; a reader more interested in studying Mx. Elsinore's transformation should look into other incidents of the narrator rejecting overall society. I would hazard a guess that a sampling of narratives with our Rainbow Lit stickers will prove most useful. _

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Nausicaä for her offer to write the end notes for this fic, so as to fit it into the realm of the AE Doyle library. Also, Dark Shoutout to me for genuinely not remembering the name of the park.  
> In case you're wondering exactly *how* accurate this all is, everything is true except the crows.


End file.
